


pillars of colonial homes

by SeptemberSevertana



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Apologies, Coping, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22770199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeptemberSevertana/pseuds/SeptemberSevertana
Summary: It's late, and Catra drove home sober.
Relationships: Catra/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63





	pillars of colonial homes

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in the middle of the night to "Unconsolable" by X Ambassadors (which is where the title comes from) and with "11 Blocks" by Wrabel in mind. Un-betaed, I just wanted to share it with you guys.

Catra drove home sober, but perhaps on the wrong side of the road. Perhaps she drove on a one-way, all the cars were parked in the same direction. And she fumbled with her keys as she walked up the steps to her apartment. Everything seemed suspended in midair, in time. The trees were half upside-down outside, green branches spanning the streets, reflecting the light from the pools of water collected in the potholes. Catra had parked a foot from the curb; her shoes were wet. Her key didn’t insert properly. 

She pressed the buzzer beside the door; “Adora, Bow, I’m back, would you buzz me in, please?” 

No answer. 

Sighing, Catra sat down, crossing her legs. She felt woozy, like someone had stuffed cotton into her ears until it reached her brain. Her mouth tasted sharp, unpleasantly so. Upon examining her keys, she realized that she didn’t even have one to Adora and Bow’s apartment. She could have sworn she did; she remembered it being red (her favorite color) and how every time she used it, a little red paint would fleck off of the teeth. Her name had been scratched into the body. She’d scraped her fingers on it when it was in her pocket once. Maybe that wasn’t Adora and Bow’s key at all.

Catra didn’t yell. She could have, but they could have been sleeping. She woke up Adora crying last week; Adora had a job early in the morning. She had multiple friends who could sleep through anything, Scorpia, Entrapta, Bow. Not Adora. 

She hadn’t meant to go out. She’d meant to stay in. She’d meant to make dinner and read and go to bed without taking the fucking wine bottle with her. Healthy coping mechanisms, you know. 

Catra went out. She drank four waters at four different bars and drove home sober. And she regretted it, because now even pretending she had the mental capacity to leave her apartment and go to a bar and drink and come back numb was too high an order. She didn’t even dance. She just stood, her posture purposefully closed off, her left hand dangling like dead weight as her right hand lifted water to her mouth. She’d walked outside in the rain twice; the wind cut through her jacket. 

This was a safe enough neighborhood for her to just lay on the steps and try to sleep. The rain had stopped and the wind was loud but warmer; she’d slept in worse. 

She’d lost her key down a storm drain, she must have. 

“What do you think you’re doing here?” someone asked, their flashlight shocking Catra’s retinas. 

She blinked. “I lost my house key, I was just going to wait until one of my roommates let me in.” 

“Catra, you’re at my apartment, not yours.” The voice had pity in it, just the smallest dose. Just a drop of food coloring; it dyed the figure’s statements kinder. 

When her eyes could focus again, Catra decided she must be drunk, after all. One of her waters could have been spiked. “Glimmer,” she stated blearily, blankly.

Glimmer, adorned in sweatpants, a hoodie with a tiny hole in the right sleeve (Bow’s puppy had gotten excited), and a thin t-shirt riding up a little on her stomach, shuttled her groceries to her other arm. “Are you drunk? Never mind, I guarantee you are.” She pushed past Catra, unlocked the door, stepped through. 

“I drove home sober,” Catra replied plaintively. “I swear to you.”

Glimmer stepped back through the door, stepped into Catra’s personal space, breathed her air. Her hair brushed Catra’s nose. “You smell like alcohol.” 

“I went to bars, but I didn’t drink anything. I swear, I drove home sober.” 

Glimmer huffed, pulling her t-shirt back down. “I know you don’t deal with personal problems that well. I had to check.” 

“It’s not good for me. None of it is. I told myself I wouldn’t go into the office or out to a club; I went to bars, but I didn’t drink anything.” 

Glimmer held her brown paper bag of groceries like people held their children, almost on her hip, her other hand stretched to Catra’s face. For a moment they were frozen, a tableau. Catra wondered why Glimmer was shorter than her when Glimmer’s presence took up so much space; she filled rooms with her laughter, with her smirks. 

She drove home sober. Home. 

“I shouldn’t be standing out here, it’s the middle of the night and it’s cold,” said Glimmer, switching her groceries back to her other hip. She began walking inside again, and Catra felt that if she let Glimmer go in, she wouldn’t come back. 

“I love you. And I’m sorry.” 

Glimmer paused, turned around; the doorway framed her in a halo of light. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you apologize.” 

“I’ve told you before that I don’t do that.” 

“So why are you doing it now?” 

Catra slumped against the wall. “Because no one’s ever deserved it from me more than you.” She paused. “I take people for granted, I took you for granted. But I won’t anymore.” 

“How can I be sure?” Glimmer asked softly; she’d wiped the makeup off her eyes and she’d pulled her hair back, and why on earth had she gone to Walmart in the middle of the night? Maybe the same reason Catra went to four bars and didn’t drink any alcohol. 

“Let me prove it to you. Please.” 

In a sudden flurry of movement, Glimmer unceremoniously dropped her bag on the ground and wrapped Catra in a tight hug. Catra snaked her fingers up Glimmer’s back, cataloging the new knots in her muscles and the old scars from falling out of a tree when she was thirteen. “I haven’t been able to sleep,” she said, breathing heavy into Catra’s neck. 

“Me neither.” 


End file.
